7 Ways to Improve Profit Through Both Long- and Short-Term Strategies
by Bobette Kyle

Your marketing mix is the combination of promotions, products, places (distribution channels), and prices you choose for products, services, and the overall business. It is important to strike a balance between those four "Ps". By including both short- and long-term marketing strategies of each, you can create an even more profitable marketing mix.

Long-Term Marketing Strategies

Long-term strategies build brand and company awareness, and give sales revenue a gradual, permanent boost. Some of the benefits are indirect and cannot always be directly associated with profit. For this reason, long-term strategies can be difficult to execute when the focus is short-term.

Branding activities.

High profile activities and general-purpose advertising contribute to your company's image by building familiarity and trust. This, in turn, can create customer loyalty. Successful branding can have a large impact on market share, but is a gradual process so cannot always be definitively measured.

Industry relationships.

Building healthy relationships with distributors and others involved in the industry puts you in a position to know about new opportunities and potential problems as they occur. Long term, this improves the flow of product from you to your customers and creates new distribution channels.

Giving.

Donating money, services, and time can build a positive image with customers and employees. Over time, this increases a company's trustworthiness. When they see you consistently giving something back to the community, they are more confident you will take the same care with them.

Research and development.

A new product pipeline and research are short-term expenses, but represent future sales. Conduct research with customers (or potential target markets) and design products to meet their needs. This ensures future growth.

Short-Term Marketing Strategies

Short-term strategies create immediate revenue. Sales and accounting people often prefer these to long-term approaches because the results are direct and quantifiable. The disadvantage of relying strictly on short-term approaches is the effect is temporary. They tend to be limited-time techniques that do not work well over time. Some examples ...

Reduced price sales.

Sales encourage customers to act. Holding a sale will give customers who have been "meaning to buy" an incentive to do so, resulting in a revenue boost. Frequent sales can erode profit over time as customers become "trained" to wait for a sale instead of buying at full price.

Group discounts and offers.

This is a good way to introduce your products or services to a new set of customers, or give important groups a permanent discount. Carefully evaluate long-term impact, however. Over time, the gain in sales may not offset the cost of continual price reductions.

Blended Marketing Strategies

Some marketing strategies have both long- and short- term benefits. Pay per click (PPC) advertising, for example, is a way to communicate temporary price reductions or highlight a promotion. PPC can also build long-term brand awareness, however, as you expose more people to a Website.

Together, long- and short-term marketing programs help achieve immediate sales goals while building business reputation and goodwill. Implement both and your business will prosper for years to come.

Bobette Kyle draws upon 15+ years of Marketing/Executive experience, online marketing experience, and a marketing MBA as inspiration for her writing. She is proprietor at the marketing plan and Website promotion site http://www.marketingsource.com/redirect?to=www.WebsiteMarketingPlan.com, where you can find more marketing strategy articles at: http://www.marketingsource.com/redirect?to=http://www.websitemarketingplan.com/techniques
Resource of the article: http://www.marketingsource.com/articles/view/4143

Summary of the article: The author begins article with a brief definition of marketing mix which is "the combination of promotions, products, places (distribution channels), and prices you choose for products, services, and the overall business". Then the author indicates that there must be a balance between those four "Ps". She also suggests that we can create more profitable marketing mix, by including both short and long term marketing strategies of each.
According to author; "long term marketing strategies build brand and company awareness, and give sales revenue a gradual, permanent boost". Long term strategies are categorized as "branding activities, industry relationships, giving(donating), research and development". To start with "branding activities" such as high profile activities and general-purpose advertising, the author says that those branding activities contribute to the company's image by building familiarity and trust, create customer loyalty, also successful branding activities can have a large impact on market share. The second long-term marketing strategy is industry relationships. The author indicates that building healthy relationships with distributors and others involved in the industry puts us in a position that we can know new opportunities and potential problems as they occur. Also she adds that in the long term, building healthy industrial relationships improves the flow of products from company to the customers and creates new distribution channels. The third long run marketing strategy is "Giving" which means donating money, services and time. Acoording to the author; this strategy can create positive image for the company with customers and employess. Creating value to the community consistently increases the trustworthiness of the company. The fourth and the last long term marketing strategy is "research and development". According to the author; This strategy creates short term expenses but it is for the future sales. She also suggests that conducting a research with customers and designing products to meet and to fulfill their needs ensures future growth for the company. The author defines that: "Some benefits of these long term marketing strategies are indirect and cannot always be directly associated with profit".
On the other hand, there are short-term marketing strategies. According to the author; "Short-term strategies create immediate revenue". Because of this reason, short-term strategies often preferred in comparison to long-term strategies. Because "the results of short-term strategies are direct and quantifiable", the author says. Also the author determines that those short-term strategies are temporary and do not perform well over time. Short-term marketing strategies are categorized as "reduced price sales" and "group discounts and offers". The author defines that reduced price sales increase the revenues but it can erode the profits over time because experienced customers wait the reduced price instead of buying at full price. The second short-term marketing strategy is "group discounts and offers". The authors defines this strategy as a "good way to introduce our products or services to a new set of customers, or give important groups a permanent discount". On the other hand, she warns us on the long-term impact of this strategy. She warns us that "the gain in sales may not offset the cost of continual price reductions." which means "going concern" as an accounting expression that is the bankruptcy of the company.
As a conclusion, the author concludes that both long and short term strategies help us achieve immediate sales goals and increase our business reputation and goodwill which determine the value of our brand. For the prosperity of our company, she suggests us to implement both short and long-term strategies.
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